As vice president of Pyrrha's fan club, Caleb Brown had eagerly acquired front row seats to the Princess trials when he'd found out that Pyrrha was going to be in them. He was in his early twenties and had stanned Pyrrha for years. She was everything he wanted in a woman, and even though she could possibly end up married to someone else, Vale's masked prince seemed like the kind of guy Caleb could live vicariously through. Both men even had blond hair, although Caleb was heavier and shorter, with glasses over his brown eyes.

When the fight broke out between Pyrrha and Penny, his heart had practically been in his throat. He had cheered when Pyrrha had emerged victorious. But then when the grimm, Atlesian knights, and White Fang members went on the attack, his fear returned. He saw Ozpin and a team of security guards escorting the prince and Pyrrha off the stage. The security team tried to escort Weiss Solstice off the stage too, but she insisted on staying to fight.

"Pyrrha!"

Caleb shouted out his idol's name, trying to catch her attention, but she couldn't hear him over the noise. He tried to move toward her, but his female friend, Jewel- president of the Pyrrha fan club- stopped him.

"The royal guards will never let you get close to them. Let's get out of here, and trust that they can protect Pyrrha," Jewel said calmly.

Caleb listened to her, but he couldn't shake the bad feeling that he had. Pyrrha was his life. If anything happened to her, he didn't know what he'd do.

...

Cinder caught up to the fleeing prince, Ozpin, and Pyrrha near the elevators. She used her Maiden power to freeze the security team and launch a fireball in the small group's direction to let them know she was here.

But only one of them was her target: Ozpin.

"Hello, Ozpin," she said, "or should I call you...Ozma?"

"Cinder?" Prince Jaune asked, lowering his sword. "What are you doing?"

Pyrrha was silent, but she also looked at Cinder with a confused expression on her face.

Mixed emotions churned within Cinder. Although she wasn't as close to team JNPR as she was to Ruby Rose and her teammates, they had become friends during their time at Beacon. Of course, what had to be done had to be done. But it still pained Cinder for the friends she'd made to see her like this- so much so, that she couldn't bring herself to answer the masked prince's question, or even hold his or Pyrrha's gaze. So instead, she silently stared Ozpin down.

"It's me she wants," Ozpin declared. "The two of you go. When you reach Beacon, send Glynda Goodwitch, Qrow Branwen, and Ironwood for help."

Prince Jaune took Pyrrha's hand, and reluctantly they complied, disappearing into the elevator.

"All this time, right under our feet. She was right about you. Such arrogance," Cinder remarked.

Ozpin was in a fighting stance, but he started to speak. "I don't know what you've been told..."

"Everything," Cinder interrupted angrily, her mind going to the painful story Salem had shared with her. "There's no excuse for the things you did to them. You've spent lifetime after lifetime presenting yourself as some angel of light, with people blindly following you while one woman had to suffer alone knowing firsthand what you really are. But she shared her truth with me. I know what you did."

Ozpin looked genuinely pained. It's a manipulation, Cinder told herself, trying to silence the flicker of doubt entering her mind.

"Cinder, I don't want to fight you," he said.

"You don't have a choice."

"We always have a choice," Ozpin replied. "We can choose to help others instead of fighting them. We can choose how we want to live. We must also accept the consequences of our choices."

He sounded just like the teacher and mentor he'd presented himself as at Beacon. Cinder had been around Ozpin for a bit after the previous Fall Maiden, Amber, had died of a terminal illness and passed her power onto her. Cinder had to admit, Ozpin came across as a kind man. But Salem, her mother figure, had warned her that he would. "He fooled me too, when I was a young girl," she'd told her. "And the man only gets better at deceiving people with each passing lifetime. Do not be fooled."

The light of flame and the green light of Ozpin's magic flared back and forth as the two of them fought. She sent shards of ice his way that he speedily deflected as he pursued her. He struck her with his weapon, long memory, and sent her flying. Fire danced around her. He formed a shield around himself, but she sent a blast of fire at the shield.

"This is for Elsa. For Anastasia. For Ella. For Ariel. And for Salem," Cinder declared.

She caught the devastated expression on Ozpin's face as she pushed one more blast of fire into his shield. That blast broke the shield, killing Ozpin.

There was nothing left of him but Long Memory.

Out of nowhere, Cinder suddenly felt a wave of grief that sent her stumbling forward. She fell to her knees and held Long Memory in her hands for almost a minute. Then she gently laid it on the floor and wiped unexpected tears away. There was an ache in her chest.

She knew she shouldn't feel this way about putting down the abuser of a woman and four little girls. Especially when one of his victims had done so much for her and confided in her. It was disloyal. The fact that Ozpin was also the man who had given the four people who had hurt and nearly killed Cinder as a teen their huntsmen licenses should have also helped Cinder be okay with what she had done. Yet Cinder could not shake the feeling that she had just done something terribly wrong on a soul-deep level.

The question was, why?

...

Cinder's negative feelings only got worse later on as she watched the video Mercury had just sent her on her scroll. All was not going according to plan. The only casualties from this attack on the palace were supposed to be Ozpin and Penny. Ozpin deserved to die, and while Penny didn't, Cinder was okay with Penny dying because she didn't really see her as an actual human (or faunus) life. A necessary sacrifice. But Penny, who had been hacked by Arthur Watts, had actually murdered people instead of just attacking Pyrrha. Either Watts wasn't the genius he'd been built up to be, or he was trying to show off his skills by having Penny go beyond what was agreed upon. The Atlesian knights were killing people too.

Asshole, Cinder thought. She never could stand Arthur and knew the feeling was mutual. She wondered how Salem would handle this overstep on his part.

Adam and the White Fang were killing people too, when their job was to steal and be a distraction while Cinder took out Ozpin and stole the relic of choice from the palace's vault. Something about Adam had always seemed a little off to Cinder, even during their first meeting when she'd recruited him, promising him a new world where the hate group Humanity First was gone and the faunus were treated with respect. It was as if he wasn't all there all the time.

But even Salem wasn't doing what she said she would.

When they'd come up with this plan, Cinder had privately asked Salem if she would control the grimm so they wouldn't kill people. They too were only supposed to cause chaos and fear with their presence, causing destruction of property without killing people. What was going on? It was horrendous.

To make matters worse, Cinder had searched the entire vault and had not been able to find the crown of choice. Without all four relics, New Remnant would not be possible.

"Cinder!"

Cinder's best friend, Emerald Sustrai, approached with Mercury trailing behind her. Mercury looked indifferent, but Emerald had tears coming from her red eyes.

"This is bad, Cinder," Emerald said. "I manipulated Pyrrha's mind like I was supposed to, but...so many people are dying."

"You did what you needed to do. That's all that matters, and you won't question Salem about any of it," Cinder said firmly. Her friend was softer than she was. She had to put on a strong front for Emerald. Even if it didn't match the way she was feeling about the night. "The relic isn't here. We're leaving now."

But then a bloom of rose petals appeared, and a familiar girl stood before them.

Ruby Rose.

...

Ruby looked at Cinder, who was standing with Mercury and Emerald. Cinder was still wearing the cropped black corset top from her outfit earlier, her signature blue and purple leaf brooch pinned to one of the cups now. But the long black skirt from earlier was missing, replaced by black pants. She was still wearing the long black gloves.

"Cinder, what's going on?" Ruby asked, quickly taking both of Cinder's hands in hers. "That was your voice on the intercom before, wasn't it?"

Cinder said nothing, and Ruby's heart sank.

"Let me go, Ruby."

"Cinder, please tell me you aren't behind this attack."

Just then, as Cinder pulled away from Ruby, one of Cinder's gloves slid off, and Ruby gasped at what she saw.

Although she'd never explained why, Cinder had told Ruby before that she had a prosthetic arm; she was self-conscious about it and always kept it hidden with a glove. But what Ruby was looking at was no normal prosthetic.

It was made of grimm. From the top of where Cinder's glove had started down to the fingers and fingernails- or claws, rather- the arm was grimm.

"How did this happen? Who did this to you?" Ruby breathed.

Cinder held her grimm arm close to herself, her cheeks reddened with embarrassment. "I guess I'm not the kind of girl you thought I was. I'm a monster."

"Cinder-"

"Girls like you can't be with girls like me. I'm too damaged, and I'll only drag you down. I've had to do things a girl like you couldn't even imagine to survive," Cinder said firmly. "You should just forget about me, Ruby, for both our sakes. Please. Besides, I'm engaged. And your mother, Summer Rose? I lead her into a trap."

Cinder's words were like a knife. Ruby fell to her knees crying.

"Aren't you going to kill her?" Mercury asked Cinder. "It's what the boss ordered- either we kill her or we bring her to the queen."

"Leave her," Cinder commanded. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her. I'll just tell her that Ruby died in the palace. Incapacitate her so she doesn't follow us."

With one well-placed hit, Mercury had Ruby knocked out.

...

When Ruby came to, the hallway was empty. She knew Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury had been headed for the stairs, so she went up the stairs and to the rooftop, thinking they had an airship waiting for them.

But what Ruby found wasn't an airship.

She found a wyvern circling the sky overhead, and she found Pyrrha. But Pyrrha was hurt- a dark glass arrow was sticking out of her chest, and she was gasping. Cinder stood before her. A security camera on the rooftop was facing them.

With a wave of Cinder's hand, Pyrrha was engulfed in flames. Ruby heard Pyrrha scream as she was quickly burned to death, nothing but ashes left behind.

Ruby felt a sharp pain and pressure building inside her head as she let out a scream of her own.

"Pyrrha!"

The world went white. Ruby saw Cinder standing over her with a wicked grin on her face. But something was different about Cinder:

Her eyes had turned purple.

Ruby passed out.